We are where we are now because of where we were before. The US from it’s inception was explicitly anti-democratic. The founders feared popular will would vote away their wealth, so they designed the structure of the government to minimize the influence of the people at large.
Fast forward to more recent history: Unions started losing their power over the later half of the 20th century, which stripped the working class of a lot of potential political power. After 9/11, things like the Patriot Act gave the government even more capabilities to spy on people than it had before. (and it had already been making use of the FBI to disrupt leftist groups.)
The greatly expanded military budget and general culture of the nebulous “war on terror” enabled the gov to militarize more of our society and made the framework for calling activists “terrorists.” The fact that congress hasn’t exercised it’s war powers since WWII and all of our wars have been illegal actions by the executive obviously has granted the executive more unilateral power. Citizen’s United opened the floodgates for even more corporate dark money in our elections. Slowly losing the Supreme Court has made the judicial branch a joke.
None of this could be happening now without that history. Trump didn’t just fall from the sky and suddenly take power. He was enabled by decades and even centuries of politicians who at best could be said to have failed to create and maintain a healthy democracy and at worst could be said to have never had any interest in democratic principles.
Are you going to argue 20 years ago was the same as right now, too?
We are where we are now because of where we were before. The US from it’s inception was explicitly anti-democratic. The founders feared popular will would vote away their wealth, so they designed the structure of the government to minimize the influence of the people at large.
Fast forward to more recent history: Unions started losing their power over the later half of the 20th century, which stripped the working class of a lot of potential political power. After 9/11, things like the Patriot Act gave the government even more capabilities to spy on people than it had before. (and it had already been making use of the FBI to disrupt leftist groups.) The greatly expanded military budget and general culture of the nebulous “war on terror” enabled the gov to militarize more of our society and made the framework for calling activists “terrorists.” The fact that congress hasn’t exercised it’s war powers since WWII and all of our wars have been illegal actions by the executive obviously has granted the executive more unilateral power. Citizen’s United opened the floodgates for even more corporate dark money in our elections. Slowly losing the Supreme Court has made the judicial branch a joke.
None of this could be happening now without that history. Trump didn’t just fall from the sky and suddenly take power. He was enabled by decades and even centuries of politicians who at best could be said to have failed to create and maintain a healthy democracy and at worst could be said to have never had any interest in democratic principles.
No, I am saying that you never had a democracy , you always had an oligarchy
Did anyone have a democracy, by your measure? Or are you contrarian out of habit?
I am not a contrarian and you are an conformist
Sure, bud. You keep doing you.
Weird how I can vote for a candidate and if they get more votes they become my representative.
I guess that’s an oligarchy to people who don’t understand what a democracy is.
You think ability vote make you a democracy lol. You don’t understand what democracy is
And you’re happy with any result that doesn’t curtail genocide.